


Pierced With Shards of Glass

by mydogwatson



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst, Multi, Post HLV, Pre-Slash, more a will be fixed fic, not really fix-it fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-02
Updated: 2014-07-02
Packaged: 2018-02-07 05:18:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,520
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1886523
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mydogwatson/pseuds/mydogwatson
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock and John have an unexpected encounter late one night and necessary words are finally said.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pierced With Shards of Glass

**Author's Note:**

  * For [SilentAuror](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SilentAuror/gifts).



> This little story has been floating around in my brain for a while. It stems from two things: first, that wonderful through the cafe window shot of Sherlock and John that I couldn't wait to see in the show. Didn't happen. And second, there was a question that I always wanted Sherlock to ask John and things that needed to be said. So this happened. Let me know what you think!
> 
> I wanted to gift this to SilentAuror in thanks for her fix-it stories that have helped me make it through the last few months.

My heart is full of fire and grief and  
my tongue runs wild, pierced with shards  
of glass

-Frederico Garcia Lorca

 

They sometimes went for coffee in an all-night café situated not far from Hyde Park. That was Before, of course.

Before he jumped and didn’t really die. Before he returned and found everything so very changed. Before there had been a marriage and a best man’s speech in which Sherlock felt as if he had revealed much more of himself than he had ever intended to let anyone see. Not that anybody seemed to notice.

Before he died again, for real this time, and then crawled his way back to life because John Watson was in danger.

Not that anybody seemed to notice.

More nights than he could count [well, more than he had bothered to count] they would find themselves sitting at the counter in the front window of the cafe until dawn, drinking far too much coffee as they talked quietly about everything and nothing. Never before in his life had Sherlock enjoyed talking about nothing. Not until John had appeared completely out of the blue in the lab at Bart’s one day and changed so much. Changed everything.

He’d certainly had no real intention of coming to the café on this particular night. The case he’d been working on [alone] had been satisfactorily resolved just before two a.m. Lestrade had bid him a yawn-filled good-bye and disappeared.

Sherlock, however, was not tired. Well, strictly speaking, he was exhausted. Hardly surprising after spending the last four days running around London in pursuit of a self-proclaimed vampire. Who turned out to be not a 21st century Count Dracula but merely a frustrated artist denied admittance into the Royal Academy Summer Show for the tenth straight year and who was determined to take revenge on the committee who had rejected him yet again.

[All of those rejections were more than warranted, in Sherlock’s opinion, based on the samples of so-called ‘art’ in the man’s flat.]

However, even as exhausted as he was, Sherlock knew that there was no point in going back to 221B. He would not be able to sleep. Who had known that it would be nearly impossible to get a good night’s sleep in a flat that did not contain the sound of someone else [John Watson] breathing in the other bedroom?

Sherlock had not meant to walk as far as the all-night café, but then he finally bothered to lift his gaze from the pavement and was confronted by the familiar and still flickering neon sign. The owner always promised that the annoying crackling light would be fixed. Sherlock was about to give up hope.

And then he looked through the window and saw John sitting at the counter, a sturdy white beaker in front of him. Sherlock just stood on the pavement for a very long moment, staring at him. Finally he went into the café, stopped at the counter for a coffee of his own, and then walked over and sat down next to his former flatmate.

It took a full minute for John to even realise that he was there. Then he blinked and offered a weak smile.

The smile annoyed Sherlock, because it was a very un-John like expression. Before, John’s smiles were real and warm, especially when aimed at him. This one was nothing the pale shadow of a real smile.

“Hi,” John said.

Sherlock nodded. “You’re out very late,” he said. Which really meant: Why aren’t you home with that woman you married? Shouldn’t you be rubbing her fat feet or fixing her a bowl of ice cream? Doing whatever one was supposed to do for a pregnant woman?

Or fucking her.

Sherlock was surprised at himself, because he rarely resorted to such language, even in his own mind. At any rate, he didn’t want to think about that particular subject.

John just shrugged, looking more tired than Sherlock had ever seen him before, despite all of their shared late nights. The wrinkles around his eyes and mouth were deeper than usual and the expression on his face was…well, Sherlock wasn’t sure what that expression signified. And he didn’t like not knowing. “Sometimes it’s still difficult, Sherlock. Every once in a while I need some air that isn’t…” Words seemed to fail him and he just shrugged again.

They were the only customers in the place. The young Pakistani man behind the counter was engrossed in an accountancy textbook. Sherlock was obviously even more tired than he’d thought, because he had never intended to utter the words that came out of his mouth next.

“John, why did you go back to her?”

John was staring out of the window at the nearly empty street. He set his beaker down very carefully. His hand trembled slightly. “Sherlock, that’s complicated. I love her. Did love her? Want to love her again? Who the fuck knows?”

Sherlock could not help the sneer that crossed his face. “That woman you ‘love’ or once loved never existed. You loved and married a lie.”

“I know that now,” John said harshly. “But…there’s a baby.”

Sherlock had his own suspicions about that baby, but he did not think that this was the best time to share them with John. It was irrelevant to his point anyway. “She shot me, John. She shot me and I died. And then she threatened me in the hospital.”

John would still not look at him. “I know all of that. I know.”

“Did she ever express even an ounce of remorse to you? She certainly didn’t to me.”

“You told me to go back.” John’s voice held a note of savagery. 

“She’s an assassin, John! Who vowed never to lose you, no matter what it took. Of course I told you to go back. But I didn’t mean it. I didn’t think you’d do it for real. I thought…I thought we’d come up with a plan.”

“You thought I would pretend?” John sounded genuinely surprised, as if the idea of something like that had never occurred to him.

Sherlock stared into his coffee. He wondered if what he was saying here would mean the final end of his friendship with John. But he could not let this fester inside any longer. He looked up and met John’s gaze. “If she had shot you, I would have killed her.”

Now John looked stunned.

Having started, Sherlock could not stop. Did not want to stop. He leaned closer. “I would have shot her down like the cold-hearted bitch she is. That is what I would have done if she’d shot my best friend.” He knew that his voice was shaking and he hated that fact. Nevertheless, he went on. “But you went back to her. You live with her and sleep with her at night and have breakfast with her every morning.” Sherlock had not realised until that very moment how much he missed having tea and toast [or scorning the tea and toast] across the table from John each day. “You have chosen her. She killed me, John, and you still chose her.”

He shut up then, although it was probably already too late to salvage whatever had been left of their friendship. He swallowed the rest of his coffee and stood. “You should go home to your wife, John.”

Before John could respond in any way, Sherlock spun around and left the café.

Because there was no place else to go, he went to Baker Street, which no longer really felt like home. Without turning on any lights or even taking off his coat, he dropped onto the sofa and closed his eyes. In order to keep himself from thinking about John, he began to organise all the data from the just-finished case. He rather doubted that any of the information would ever be useful again, but one never knew.

It was some unknown time later when Sherlock heard the unmistakable sound of John’s footsteps coming up the stairs. Using only the light coming in from the window, the other man crossed the room and dropped to the floor next to the sofa. “I’m sorry,” he said in a not-quite whisper. “Sherlock, I’m so very sorry. If you can never forgive me, I would understand.”

“I forgive you,” Sherlock said dully. “Do you really believe I have a choice about that? I will always forgive you.”

John scooted closer and then bent to rest his head partly against the cushion and partly against Sherlock’s shoulder. “Don’t abandon me yet,” he said. “This is still a work in progress.”

Sherlock finally opened his eyes and looked at John. “Don’t be an idiot. I haven’t abandoned you.”

“Good. I’m glad.”

They sat in silence for so long that John eventually fell asleep.

Sherlock did not sleep. He just lay there in the dark, inhaling the oddly familiar and comforting scent of John’s hair and wondering how the soft sound of one man’s inhalations and exhalations could fill a flat so entirely. And make it feel like home. 

fini

**Author's Note:**

> This briefly interrupted the work on my long AU, but I am still working hard on it. [While also editing my non-fan novel.] I had wanted to have the AU done and posted before I return to London for the World Sci Fi con in August, but that looks doubtful now. But soon after that, I promise. Anybody else going to be in London then?


End file.
